


Raise Hell

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Apocalypse, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of Angst, M/M, Multi, i'll add the rest of the characters as i keep writing, there might as well only be hints, there might be relationships later on, though i'm quite fond of the idea without any relationships involved so
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 02:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Some say the world will end in fire,<br/>Some say in ice.<br/>From what I've tasted of desire<br/>I hold with those who favor fire.<br/>But if it had to perish twice,<br/>I think I know enough of hate<br/>To say that for destruction ice<br/>Is also great<br/>And would suffice."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. M O R S   V I T A M   S E R V A T

**Author's Note:**

> Summary taken from the poem "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost
> 
> Where do I even begin to explain this massive AU?  
> So I was basically inspired by my general interest in End-of-the-World myths to write something in that direction and since I'm fascinated with the Horsemen I found myself pondering about their characterizations and then I thought about the Amis' characterizations and poof
> 
> That's the long story short.
> 
> I have all of the Amis + Marius, Musichetta, Cosette & Eponine set to a Horseman, a Deadly Sin or something else (shh, I know it sounds weird, it is, but it also makes writing this really interesting) If you ask nicely, I might tell you who's who (although it's quite easy to figure that out if you read the fic)
> 
> This could also become a series in which every part focuses on different characters, since I can't possibly put 13 characters into one story and go into depth about every characterization and I really love pondering about characterization so...
> 
> And it will involve lots of angst, possibly character death (since I'm a cruel human being) and even more angst.
> 
> Also, if you're not a big fan of apocalypse descriptions, you should probably walk away, I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable while reading this (dying people and so on, it's the apocalypse, so: surprise, surprise)
> 
> Since it's the first chapter, it's more of an introduction and kind of short. The rest of the chapters will be a lot longer.
> 
> And this hasn't been beta'd by a native English speaker, so...
> 
> Anyway, enjoy reading!

"Rebellio. Cogitatio, simplex scintilla est, quae aridum ramum ad incendio silvae facit.  
Nihil refert, num quod initium tuus impulsus cogitationis vel per alio aliquo incensus esset.  
Rebellio factum est, quod ad progressui incitat, imagines perfectissimae denuo conscipere incitat.  
Novas vias inveniere, quas fortasse idem destinatium ducent.  
Revelatio, initium, commutation. Hae res rebellion sunt.  
Numquam ea desinet.  
Semper procedet. Semper aliquid excolet. Commutatio perpetuo fit rebellione.  
Ibi. In capite. Ibi numquam ea desinet."  
  
_________  
  
The night was nearly black. Moon and stars had hidden in fear of the gruesome tragedy and the sun had been long gone. The only remaining sources of light were the blazing flames, epitomes of destruction that were slowly swallowing the Earth, burning everything in their way.  
Screams echoed in the darkness, unanswered and desperate, as fire devoured the homes of human and animal alike.  
While the world ended, it stood still.  
  
There weren't a lot of things left that gave him a reason, mankind and animals dying as hell broke loose, Flames devouring everything that had been alive, leaving only ashes behind, and destroying his reason.  
  
Without Death there wouldn't be a life to live and without Life there would be no Death.  
  
Those were his thoughts as the lights of burning homes danced in his eyes.  
  
“Enjolras,” a familiar, steady voice suddenly said from somewhere behind him. When he turned on the back of his horse, he saw brown eyes looking at him. With a soft touch to the withers, he signaled the white fresian to stop, before he dismounted with a swift motion within a few seconds.  
  
He walked over to the ginger and raised his arm in a greeting, but quickly let it fall after a short consideration.  
  
“Feuilly”  
  
His friend examined him for an instant, causing the blonde to turn away before Feuilly raised his head slightly and looked at the flames slowly consuming the building in front of them. Watching the flames, they stood next to each other, neither of them saying a word, as if suddenly words weren’t needed to communicate anymore. Feuilly smiled.  
“It’s funny isn’t it? We are literally the deadly ones. We exist to wreak havoc. Every day. Everywhere. It’s what makes us proud. To see a house burn, a king become fat with riches he doesn’t deserve, to watch someone grow tired of everything… Whatever floats your boat, I guess. Still, it somehow hurts us to see everything slowly die.” He giggled, slightly manic. “Even though it couldn’t be easier to kill, right?”  
  
Enjolras expression remained unreadable.  
  
“No.”  
  
Feuilly frowned and dramatically opened his mouth to look at him with a horrified expression. “No?” A laugh resounded, anew. “Pardon, I forgot, you’re quite literally Death. Fun and joy aren’t allowed around you. Same with sadness and melancholy, I guess. Your life is actually dead, if you excuse the pun.” Slowly, Feuilly’s tone became more serious, as he turned his face to watch the flames again. “If you aren’t escorting people to Hell, you’re surely planning the next catastrophe. Pride, for you, is actually only yourself.”  
  
The scream of a little girl could be heard from somewhere behind them, which caused Feuilly to crack a laugh again. Enjolras’ mouth formed a thin line and his eyes seemed to focus with all of his might on a point somewhere in front of him. They spent a few seconds in renewed silence, before he turned to look his friend directly in the eyes.  
  
“I meant: No, just because I’m Death, doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m proud of what I do.” Forming his hands into fists in the pockets of his coat, he closed his eyes. “’I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.’” He opened his eyes. “Just because I have been given power, I don’t have to enjoy it.”  
  
Feuilly looked at him appreciatively, but raised his head a tad.  
  
The cry of the girl resounded through the city. And now Enjolras spotted the screaming child under a fallen, burning wooden panel. She was cowering, calling for mother and father, in front of a stone wall, arms raised to protect her head and legs pulled up to her body.  
  
“Just because I mostly kill,” Enjolras began as he passed the Friesian to get to the child as fast as possible, “doesn't necessarily mean, I don't know how to save a life.” He lifted the plank with his right hand, ignoring the pain that was being burned into his arm, and offered the girl his left hand.  
  
Big, green eyes examined his arm, before they focused on his face. His expression remained unreadable as the already pale girl’s face lost all colour. With a cough, the girl stumbled into a somehow-upright position and bolted past him with long strides.  
  
Enjolras let go of the panel and wiped his already nearly healed arm on the thick material of his cape.  
  
“But what for,” another voice now resounded. Blue eyes looked at him hazily, as he turned slowly, but surely. “Why save lifes when the world goes down the drain? Whether you get swallowed up by flames now or die later,” the black-haired man took a long sip from his bottle of wine, “doesn’t really matter nowadays, o Death.”  
  
“Every day is important. No matter how it’s spent. Life is the essence of all. So why should someone die today when I could stop it?”  
  
The blue eyes smiled at him now, but gave no reply.  
  
“He’s right, tho’, Enjy,” Feuilly spoke up again, “If you don’t kill, if that is not your whole pride as Death himself. What are you proud of?”  
  
“I’m proud of the progress, I’m responsible for. And that’s all I need.”  
  
“Oh, come on. Everything’s gonna have to bite the dust soon, anyway, why bother if there isn’t any reason to,” commented Grantaire cynically.  
  
For the first time, a smile lit up on Enjolras’ face  
  
“Why does it have to?”


	2. Bellum Pacem Agnoscit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire on hair, Enjolras' use of a flower as a metaphor and the wonderful beginning of a revolution against a (kind of) revolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter kind of contains descriptions of violence, I don't know how that happened, either.
> 
> Aaand, the first outlining of the plot (no, just kidding, still introducing character you actually already know)
> 
> It also involves Grantaire being a massive twat, Enjolras being harsh and Jehan being better than everyone else, oh, and Feuilly (nearly) kisses a horse butt

“pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:  
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness  
\--- electrons deify one razorblade  
into a mountainrange; lenses extend  
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish  
returns on its unself.“

 

Enjolras reached up to rub the bridge of his nose and maybe slightly lessen the throbbing headache obscuring his thoughts.

“And once again,” Grantaire commented, dramatically gesturing, “our mighty hero Death massages the bridge of his nose, pondering the state of injustice threatening-“

“Grantaire,” Enjolras hissed, but the black-haired man didn’t bother to stop.

“-the world, trying to work out the solution. Was it insurrection? Rebellion? Revolution?”

“Grantaire, for go-,” he stopped speaking and walking, nearly making Feuilly kiss the albino fresian’s buttocks. “Do us all a favour and stop inflicting your idiotic thoughts on the world, otherwise I might actually have to make you shut up forever,” 

Enjolras’ sharp words made the drunk stop in his tracks immediately.

Sadly, the silence didn’t last too long.

“I’ve always wondered,” the sin started, and smiled, amused by Enjolras’ exasperated sigh, “why the bloody hell do you have blonde hair, it’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? You’re Death, conqueror of all, destroyer of life, last man standing, and you’ve got some casanova’s shining blonde locks.”

Another strained sigh while Enjolras grapped the fresian’s leads tighter.

“I mean, look at Feuilly,” the ginger dramatically pulled a hand through his short locks, “his hair is like the epitome of Pride. Red is a really weird colour for hair, and yet he’s still proud of it, even though he shouldn’t be.”

Feuilly answered with a playfully hurt snort.

“I’ve got hair as dark as my soul, which, to be honest, isn’t even as dark as yours, milord.”

A short pause, during which he seemed to expect an answer, followed.

“Maybe,” he went on then, carefully constructing his monologue, “Maybe your soul is so dark that even black isn’t negative enough, so the dear creator decided to work with some kind of parody, the ultimate contradiction.” 

The blonde’s body tensed at that. He dropped the leads, and turned to Grantaire, putting a soothing hand on the freesian’s flank. Every muscle in his body seemed to be stressed.

“Congratulations, oh Death, thine locks contradict creation itself,” the cynic grinned.

And Enjolras snapped.

He grabbed Grantaire by the collar of his beloved green shirt, pulling him slightly off his feet, and meeting him on eye-level. The brunette’s smile only slightly faded.

“Contradiction, you say? Well, let that creator not forget the tiresome drunk whose constant ramblings are unwelcome to every single person in said creation. The drunkard constantly cursing every single living thing of said creation, condemning every good belief with his cynism.”

Grantaire tried to pull his eyes away, but Enjolras’ cold glare practically forced him to meet it.

“Before you start insulting my behavior or thoughts, you should take care to watch your own,” the blonde finished and abruptly let go of him, causing him to stumble for a moment. 

Enjolras turned to pick up the mare’s leads again, but stopped in his step to look back, wanting to inflict one last blow.

“Because you, Grantaire, you don’t believe in anything,” he spat.

The rest of the way was spent in silence.  
_______________

 

The world was red. Fire still blazed on the horizon, creating a gradient orange, and lighting up the sky.

Abruptly moving shadows blocked every way and reared up in front of one another. 

People jumped one another, claws out and ready to fight. Fighting each other, creation showed its true nature. Red threads blurring its sight, it forgot itself, while former friends attacked each other. Creation killed without purpose. Enjoying the rage, it pushed the fight to the bitter end und destroyed itself.

A civil war without purpose.

And Jehan stood right in the middle of it. Reins of a brown mare in one hand, burning sword in the other one. His red hair, fallen from the elegant braid, stuck to his neck, his face and his forehead. Dried blood painted his formerly elegant, now torn-up, button-up shirt red. His eyes were narrowed and his brows furrowed, while he stood above the battlefield like an angel of death.

“Sans cesse à mes côtes s’agite le Démon / Il nage autour de moi comme un air impalpable,” he recited loudly and with a steady voice, without anyone turning around to watch him. Too swallowed up by their rage, they didn’t even notice the poet when he started walking through their lines. 

Not honouring anyone with a simple look, he passed the crowds, before he stopped in front of a man who was violently throwing down a girl to cower above her, observing her with a needy grin.

“Je l’avale et le sens qui brûle mon poumon”

Slowly, Jehan lifted the sword in his hand.

“Et l’emplit d’un désir éternel et coupable.”

The sword fell, the man fell silent and Prouvaire turned to look at the girl.

“Des vêtements souillés, des blessure ouvertes”

The girl’s eyes nonchalantly fell upon the man’s unmoving body in front of her, then turned to watch Jehan, as she got up, taking the man’s knife.

Jehan grinned, visibly amused, and raised his weapon in return, blazing blade pointed at the girl’s form. His eyes sparked with excitement, as he quietly reached the last verse. 

“Et l’appareil sanglant de la Destruction!”

“Stop.” Enjolras voice cut through to them. Unnoticed by everyone, he had walked through the crowds and tried to ignore the scene in front of him, blend out the unnecessary violence. “Jehan, it’s enough, stop, there’s no point.”

The poet, who was nearly as tall as he was, had stopped speaking while Enjolras had stepped to stand between him and the girl.

The blonde grabbed her wrist with a swift motion and applied enough pressure for her to relax the grip on the knife and therefore drop it. She cried out and started pushing and throwing herself against him, while Enjolras slightly loosened his grip to lay his free hand onto her forehead. Her body went limp and sagged in his arms, as she closed her eyes. 

He put her body down slowly.

Then he turned around to look at his friend again.

Enjolras’ concerned eyes met a provoking glare. 

“Well, hello, Enjolras,” Jehan said, tucking the ornamented rapier into his rose-coloured sash. He took the blonde’s hand and placed a polite kiss onto its back, and then reached up to readjust his braid. “What’s the bother? You look like someone just ran over your favourite puppy.”

The comment earned him a confused look, which was immediately replaced by the well-known seriousness on the leader’s face. “We need to discuss something, and I don’t want to be surrounded by rabid creatures while doing so.”  


Jehan pretended to frown.

“Oh, that’s a shame.”  
__________

 

“I quite liked the atmosphere, actually,” the ginger said, watching the fighting people from their spot on the hill, smiling fondly. His mare was annoyedly trying to graze the far too shallow grass. 

“I didn’t. They basically teared each other’s heads off without a proper reason to,” Enjolras snarled

“They didn’t beat around the bush, though,” he turned to look at Enjolras, “which you have a tendency to do if I can be completely honest with you, dearest Enjy.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Okey-dokey.”

The poet waited for Enjolras to pick up the conversation again, which took a while.

“Do you really enjoy getting people at each other’s throats?” he finally asked

“Yes, I actually do, it’s kind of the only time when they’re completely honest with each other. Yesterday I heard a guy accusing at least ten people of having stolen his toothbrush, for example, he would have never found a new toothbrush without help I’m afraid.”

It earned him another confused look before Enjolras spoke again: “But there is no real reason to do it, Jehan.”

“Well, it’s fun.”

“It’s pointless to just end the world because you enjoy seeing them search for their toothbrushs.”

“You have a point there, but my honesty point still stands, sweetheart. We’re the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, we can’t just take a day off because ‘there’s no point’.” He made little quotation marks with his hands for an extra-dramatic effect.

Enjolras chose to ignore him and instead picked the only flower on the hill (a corn poppy, Jehan noticed) and held it up for him to see.

“You’re going to use the flower as a symbol, aren’t you?” Jehan asked, brows furrowed and judging his friend with a look. “Don’t. Please don’t use the flower as a symbol.”

The blonde gave him a look.

“Oh Christ, that’s a bit too cliché for my liking,” the poet muttered under his breath, kicking the little stones on the hill.

“Look at it, Jehan, I know you like flowers.”

“Not as symbols for your speeches, thank you.”

Another look, this time a bit more serious. “A flower itself is perfect, raised with great care, flourished into beauty, nice to look at for every living being. If corrupted with foul water, it loses its petals, its beauty and, in a way, its raison d’être. Why change something that is already beautiful on its own?” He crumpled the flower in his hand. “Why destroy it?” The flower fell to the ground.

Jehan stood motionless, eyes fixed on the small red flower in the shallow grass.

“So? What do you say? Should we revolt against our very existence, and see where that brings us?”

“Okay, you might be right, your symbolic speech definitely changed my mind,” Jehan replied with a sarcastic tone.

Enjolras held his hand out, which Jehan gladly took and shook. He motioned towards the grazing fresian down the hill, next to which Grantaire and Feuilly were unsuccessfully trying to light a small fire.

“Ah, so you’re not the only person that’s crazy enough to stand up to the Apocalypse? Oh, and, by the way, the Apocalypse is kind of a change, and therefore a sort of revolution, on its own, isn’t it? So we’re basically leading a revolution against a revolution. Well, that should be fun.”

The blonde ignored the rambling. “Feuilly and Grantaire are kind of helping.”

“Sounds like a fun party.”

“Depends on your definition of ‘fun’,” Enjolras mumbled, while they slowly started walking towards the rest of the group.

They walked in silence, at first, occasionally looking back at the small town. Enjolras disgusted, Jehan interested.

“You know, you still destroyed an innocent flower just to make a point. Shame on you, sweetheart,” the poet mentioned playfully scandalized after a while, causing Enjolras to smile slightly.

The rest of the way downhill, they spent talking about the iambic pentameter in some of Jehan’s favourite poems.

 

„ A world of made  
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this  
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell  
of a good universe next door; let's go”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation for the French poem ("La Destruction" by Charles Baudelair) would be:  
> "The Demon is always moving about at my side;  
> He floats about me like an impalpable air;  
> I swallow him, I feel him burn my lungs  
> And fill them with an eternal, sinful desire. [...]  
> Soiled clothes and bleeding gashes he will throw  
> And all the grim regalia of Destruction."
> 
> The passages at the beginning and the end are both from E.E. Cumming's poem "pity this busy monster, manunkind"

**Author's Note:**

> That's all, folks.
> 
> The original introduction (that my friend translated into Latin for me) is:
> 
> "Rebellion. Rebellion is a thought, a simple spark, turning a dried-out branch into a forest fire. It doesn't matter whether the impulse is yours or someone else inspires you to start a fire.
> 
> Rebellion is a fact, that inspires us to change, to evolve, to redefine our ideals. To find new paths to an old goal.
> 
> A revelation. A beginning. A change. That all is rebellion.
> 
> And it never stops.
> 
> Continuously, something is changing. Something is always progressing. Whether it's our mind, our opinion or our heart. Change itself, is consistent.
> 
> Rebellion.
> 
> In our mind. It will never stop."
> 
>  
> 
> Enjolras' quote is from the Bible (or wikipedia since I only own a german translation of the Bible, whoops)
> 
> If you haven't guessed who Feuilly is: He's Pride.  
> I won't say anything about Grantaire yet (even though it's quite obvious, if you know/look up the 7 Deadly Sins and the Horsemen)
> 
> I'll try to write the next chapter up as fast as I can and if you've got any questions concerning headcanons: my tumblr url is revolutionarybooty


End file.
